I Want to Be a Cyborg (Chapter 2)

Read Chapter 1 to get caught up before reading on…

The Threshold 

Matt drove with the radio off. The rising sun bled over the hills in golden streaks, catching on windshields and bouncing off silos. Mount Horeb thinned out fast, replaced by long stretches of dry fields, baled hay, and distant barns like toy buildings in a sea of beige. About an hour into the drive, Jim texted. 

Mornin’ babe. Saw your note. Tell Danny I said hi. 

Matt forced a smile and replied. 

Will do. 

It wasn’t a total lie. Danny was real. They’d shared a dorm and a few too many benders back in the day. Coincidentally, Danny’s expression when he was studying looked tantalizingly robotic, and Matt had burned it into his memory for late-night recall many times during their roommate years. But Matt hadn’t seen him in years, and Danny sure as hell didn’t live in Chicago. 

He watched the GPS tick down. 120 miles. Then 78. Then 41. 

The terrain shifted subtly as he crossed into the outskirts of Chicago. The air changed, becoming thicker and hazier. Overpasses layered like scattered bones. Suburban strip malls gave way to shuttered warehouses and signage in foreign alphabets. The roads narrowed. Cracks spidered through distressed concrete. 

He turned onto a service road just past a trucking depot. “You are now arriving at your destination,” the GPS chirped. A brick warehouse loomed ahead. Four stories, only a few blacked out windows, and one rusted roll-up door behind a keypad. Matt pulled into the empty lot, parked, and sat still with his hands on the wheel. 

He rechecked the address. It was correct, but there was no sign of life. Not even a buzzer. Just the keypad. 

It’s not too late to turn around and go home, Matt thought. I could be back with Jim by lunchtime. 

For someone whose greatest desire was to become a robot, Matt felt distractingly emotional about what he was preparing to do. Jim gave him everything he wanted in a partner, except the one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind. He was tired of being a robot only in his imagination. He was tired of text-based roleplay with faceless strangers that went nowhere. Ben’s promise of full transformation was the closest he’d come to living his fantasy in years. The words of a wise old gentleman from a bear cruise last Christmas echoed in his mind. 

Sometimes it’s scary to get what you want. 

“Fear is an emotion,” Matt said aloud, conjuring up his bravest robotic monotone. “I do not experience fear.” 

He stepped out of the car, strode toward the keypad, and raised a hand. Before he touched anything, the door began to roll up with a metallic groan. Inside, there was darkness, then overhead fluorescents flickered on in a wave, revealing a corridor of polished concrete and brushed steel. 

Ben stood at the far end, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt tucked into cargo pants and shiny black latex gloves that went almost to his elbows. 

He didn’t speak. Matt stepped forward, and the door rumbled closed behind him. The robot maker and his willing subject stood in silence for a long moment. Then Ben turned and walked away, expecting Matt to follow. 

He did. 

The warehouse had been gutted and rebuilt. Every surface gleamed. The air smelled like antiseptic and vinyl. Narrow LED strips glowed along baseboards. There were no windows. No clocks. 

Matt followed Ben past a workbench lined with tools. Some were ordinary while others were strange and chromed, like something out of a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. Matt didn’t ask questions. His mouth was too dry. 

Ben opened a steel door and gestured inside. Matt entered first. The room was small and windowless, with mirrors along each wall. A padded bench lined the far wall, and a table sat in the center. On the table was a rubber suit, unfolded in all its black, glossy, anatomical glory. A chastity belt rested atop it, its curvature cold and obvious. The padlock was open, waiting to be fastened tight. 

Ben shut the door behind them and slid the bolts. Only then did he speak. 

“Are you ready to stop pretending you’re human?” 

Matt blinked. His lips parted. He wanted to ask what Ben meant exactly. He wanted to negotiate, to pretend he still had control. But he’d come all this way. He swallowed. 

“Yes.” 

“Affirmative,” Ben corrected, then gestured to the table. 

The rubber gleamed under the overhead lights, ready to capture the shape of whoever would become its occupant. Matt’s throat tightened. There was no drama or fanfare. No discussion of safe words. Just the suit and the man who would help him disappear into it. 

Ben crossed to the table and unzipped the suit, lifting it carefully as though it were alive. He held it up, aligning the seams until it resembled the outline of a human being, limbs splayed, chest cavity open, and neck socket exposed. 

“It’s time to say goodbye to Matt.” 

Matt stood motionless, unsure where to begin. Ben didn’t ask for permission. He slung the suit over one arm and stepped in front of Matt, undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one. The cotton slid off Matt’s shoulders and lay abandoned on the floor. Next came the belt. Then the pants. And socks. 

Matt’s underwear was last. With one hand, Bend pulled them down until they were around Matt’s ankles. Matt, naked, flushed, and visibly trembling, stepped out of them and kicked them aside. 

Ben looked at Matt, not in a sexual way, and not in any way that acknowledged vulnerability, but the way a collector eyes a shiny new toy. A potential possession. He nodded at the suit in his arms. 

“Get greased up and step in.” 

Matt did. The legs came first. The rubber resisted at first, then yielded as his feet pushed through. The interior was slick and tight, unlike clothing. More like being poured into a mold. Every part clung to him, calves, thighs, and groin. 

Then came his lower torso. Ben guided the suit upwards with both hands, pressing panels into place atop the rubber base layer with a series of clicks that sounded eerily like mechanical locks. 

“Arms.” 

Matt raised them. Ben guided the sleeves and locked the shoulder seams in. Matt shivered as the cool lubricant touched the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrists. Ben placed black, joined gloves with articulated fingers onto Matt’s hands, which vanished beneath the oil black second skin. 

Ben knelt and unzipped Matt’s suit at the groin, then moved to the final fastening: a solid chastity belt, made of matte steel with a biometric lock. He fitted it over the suit and clicked it into place, encasing Matt’s last vestige of biological pleasure. It clamped shut with a clack that made Matt flinch. 

Ben said nothing. He stood back and retrieved the final piece from the table, a glossy, seamless helmet, with a chin seal and smooth oval visor. The back curved like the wings of a spacecraft, and small ports lined the jaw. The VR goggles inside were already humming. 

Matt turned toward the mirror and stopped breathing. The figure staring back was not him. It had his height, his outline. But the details were all gone. Replaced. The face was blank. The chest was segmented with faint contours that resembled muscle but were stylized. Overengineered. The seams were so clean they might as well have been sculpted. 

He raised one rubberized hand and watched the mirror echo it exactly. 

He was an object. Shiny. Synthetic. Silent. 

Ben tilted one half of the table upward into a reclining position. “Sit,” he said. 

Matt obeyed. His rubber-coated spine slid into the groove with a perfect fit. 

Ben placed the helmet gently over Matt’s head. The sound inside shifted. He could no longer hear the faint industrial din outside the warehouse. He could no longer hear even his own breathing or heartbeat. Just a rising hum and a distant click. The goggles powered on. 

The last thing Matt saw before the visor sealed was his reflection disappearing behind black glass. The lights in the room dimmed. 

Then everything went black.